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Bitcoin currency valuation through the roof
Glad to be the first to post this. The headline is that a man who purchased $27 of bitcoin peer-to-peer digital currency in 2009 and forgot about it discovered that it’s now worth $886 000. Also, cheers to Vancouver for having the world’s first bitcoin ATM (link in article). There are lots of fascinating implications […]
Scandinavia, Switzerland & Nollywood
In last week’s class there was an interesting though brief discussion around the possible correlation between weak IP countries and strong creative presence. This grew out of an article written by the Law Librarian at Rutgers last year which pointed out a correlation between strong economies and weak IP laws. What I wished for in […]
3D printing and IP
This article by Deven Desai & Gerard Magliocca gives a good overview of the ramifications of 3D printing for all three areas of IP (copyright, patent and trademark). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2338067 I agree with the characterization of 3D printing as a continuation of the digitization of commodities that began with music and video files by extending it […]
Virtual Property continued…
One interesting angle on this issue is the difficulty posed to recognizing rights in virtual property that arises due to the ephemeral nature of video-game worlds. Evolving technology, capricious consumers, the game-makers’ efforts to keep their products fresh, and ultimately the success of the game over time all ensure that no virtual world is likely […]
Apple and the Smartphone Wars
Further to Roch’s point today in class about the patent wars by Apple, here is (another) article I wrote the IP blog out of Osgoode discussing some of the potential benefits or not to the smartphone wars. http://www.iposgoode.ca/2013/05/can-apple-unlock-a-benefit-to-the-smartphone-patent-wars/
Digital assets when you die
If anyone is interested, here is a link to an article I wrote for Osgoode’s IP blog about inheritance of people’s digital assets: http://www.iposgoode.ca/2013/05/who-inherits-your-likes/ It is mostly about Google’s recent feature for inactive account management, but also discusses some other issues.
The N.S.A. & Copyright
For the last couple of weeks there has been this odd and mostly (but not entirely) facetious thought running around in my brain… Among the Edward Snowden related revelations we know the N.S.A. has downloaded tremendous amounts of data which it is storing. Though the focus has been on location data as well as metadata, […]
Surveillance Technology in the Real World
Had two very recent technology interactions which surprised me and brought some issues of privacy and surveillance into sharper relief. Theory is one thing. Read popular and academic articles on the subject is another. Having what viscerally feels to be an intrusive experiences, even in an admittedly small way, stirs a whole new level of […]
Don’t Touch That Code: Silicon Knights v Epic and Intellectual-Property Rights
In Week 2 of the course we discussed what parts of videogames are actually protected by intellectual property. As Mr. Ripley reminded us, one such part is the code itself. This has interesting implications when the code is not owned by the game’s designer. One of the issues in videogame copyright today is […]
Sport, or not a sport…
I admit I bit my tongue during class when Jon brought up the matter of whether or not video games were sports. I would put sports at the top of the list of polarizing subjects, jostling for position with religion and politics; debates over contentious issues in sports are no less heated than those related […]